{"id":3175,"date":"2016-09-05T11:33:03","date_gmt":"2016-09-05T18:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/?p=3175"},"modified":"2016-09-05T11:33:03","modified_gmt":"2016-09-05T18:33:03","slug":"on-our-couch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/on-our-couch\/","title":{"rendered":"On Our Couch"},"content":{"rendered":"
A Jon Post<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n She plays with my daughters in our backyard like they are her own children. Her smile and laugh are infectious, her joy bubbles out of her like a champagne glass.<\/p>\n And she\u2019s dying.<\/p>\n She\u2019s been away from her 18 year old son for 9 months and she is desperately tired of chemotherapy. Last week, when confronted with 2 more days of a 3 day course of chemotherapy, she lay on her bed and wept bitter tears on her pillow, tired and angry at her body for its betrayal and frailty.<\/p>\n Layne and I argued back and forth on whether we should counsel her to continue with her treatment or not, whether to hope for reduction in tumor size, or to forgo the torture that is fluorouracil and cisplatin dripped into her veins.<\/p>\n And we sat with her on our couch and held her hand and wept together. We explained in Portuguese and our partner and friend, Pedro, explained in Nyumbwe, her first language. We spoke about hope, about what chemo may be able to accomplish, we spoke about pain, about how her tumor will grow and close airways, and we spoke about Christ, who weeps with us and who knows what it means to pray for suffering to be taken away and to have the Father say no.<\/p>\n